


Black Marked Soul

by IndianSummer13



Series: all or nothing way of loving you [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abortion, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Dark!Jughead, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It Won't Always Hurt, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-01-06 07:06:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: He tries so hard to get it right, but in the end, his last name will always be his undoing.Or, the bet on her virginity was just the start, and moving on isn’t quite as easy as it seems..Sequel to Dandelion Clocks





	1. Navigating

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here! After much debate (and delay!) we have whatever this story turns out to be. I'm stating this from the outset: THIS IS NOT A HAPPY FIC. It's not the Jughead you love from the show or the comics. It's not sweetness and light. It's the follow-up to Dandelion Clocks which builds upon the same themes explored previously.
> 
> So, please don't read this if you were offended/triggered by anything in that story. Please read the tags. 
> 
> If that hasn't put you off, then I really hope you enjoy. There is a playlist to complement this chapter which you can find on Tumblr, released by my favourite @alicat-gotyourtongue  
> x

They set out into the night as something other than enemies; something far from friends. The space between their bodies isn’t wide, but the tension is thick enough to make it feel like a hundred feet and a single millimeter at the same time, and Betty wonders still whether she should run. Whether she should  _ keep _ running until she’s far away from this stupid tiny town and everything she’s learned in the short time she’s been here.

Then, clearing his throat, Jughead asks if he might walk her home. “If you want,” he adds, because he’s protecting himself too.

“I’ll be fine,” Betty tells him, because she will (even though she isn’t - not yet anyway) and she’s not sure she can stand to be around him like this. He looks sad and her overwhelming urge is to kiss him; taste the salt in his tears and stroke it back into his mouth with her tongue, and all of that is tearing at her chest. 

“Okay,” he says, and nods, his beanie still clutched in his right hand. “Okay.”

She turns to walk in the direction of the north side, back to her street and its house painted white and pure, and she hears him speak again.

“Betts?”

She jerks her head at the nickname and watches his lips part, shallow breaths visible in the cold air. He closes his mouth again, then opens it and her gaze slides to the grip his fingers have on the hat. His knuckles are white and tense and all he does is clear his throat again.

She doesn’t reply either.

  
  
  
  
  


Miraculously, Betty manages to make it up to her room without Alice torturing her for dance details, and buries her face into the pillow. She wants it to smell like Jughead but of course, it doesn’t; just smells of clean cotton and the floral fabric softener her mom uses.  

She allows herself a minute or so of pining for the boy she doesn’t want to love; for the boy she hopes she  _ doesn’t _ love (and yet, she knows how that one is likely to pan out) allows herself the sniff of air when she lifts her head, just in case there’s a trace of cigarette smoke lingering outside of her bedroom window. 

There isn’t of course, and she pulls herself up, washes her face and cleans her teeth, changes into pajamas printed with cherries and pulls her hair into a bun on the top of her head before climbing under the covers.

Her phone vibrates in her purse and she stretches over the side of the bed to pull it out, trying not to hope for anything. It’s Veronica: several texts and missed calls, and she quickly types a reply:  **I’m home. Everything is fine. Thank you for earlier.**

And then, just as she sets it back on her nightstand, it vibrates again with a call - only this time it’s Jughead.

“Hello?” she whispers, partly so her parents won’t hear, and partly because her voice doesn’t seem to be working properly anyway.

“I’m sorry. That’s… that’s what I should’ve said earlier.”

Betty sniffs, finding already there are tears. 

“I don’t want to make you cry.”

She shakes her head but she’s crying anyway.

“Are you home?”

She takes a breath. “Don’t… don’t come over.”

She can hear him swallow. “I won’t, just… I wanted to check you’re safe. Uh…that you’re home.” he’s rubbing his neck - she can tell. “ _ Are _ you?”

Betty sniffs again. “I’m home.” 

“Right.” It’s tensely quiet between them save for his breaths over the receiver. “Good. That’s… good.”

Neither of them hang up, and Betty listens to him on the other end of the line, wondering whether he’s at his trailer yet or whether he’s somewhere else: the Wyrm Hole or Whyte Wyrm perhaps, or maybe still Pop’s. She doesn’t ask.

“I wanted to ask you something, and I don’t know… shit, maybe I’m supposed to do it in person.”

“Jughead,” she says finally. “What is it?”

“Will you go out with me? Uh…On a date I mean.”

“A date?”

“A real one this time. I won’t… it wouldn’t be like last time.”

The sudden metal taste on her tongue tells her that she’s bitten too hard on her lower lip, and she releases it, soothing the split with her tongue. Her mind wanders to the way it had felt when Jughead had sucked on her lip and she’d pressed her core against his and he’d groaned _ fuck, Betts _ into her mouth.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he adds. “I just wanted to ask you.”

They’re starting over. Is this what people do, she wonders, when they start over? Be more brave? More honest?

“Yes,” Betty decides aloud. “I think I’d like that… a date.”

There’s yet another pause on the end of the line, but then she hears Jughead say, “Yeah?”

She can tell he’s smiling; wonders if those dark sapphire eyes of his are twinkling. “Yeah.”

When they hang up, she smiles so wide that she buries her face back into her pillow lest anyone walk in and see. Her phone buzzes with a text and she sees his name appear on the screen:

**Goodnight x**

  
  
  
  
  


They arrange to meet the following evening at the playpark a couple blocks away from Elm Street. It’s drizzling in a way that makes her hair frizz and her jeans stick to her legs, but there are butterflies fluttering in her stomach which she can’t tell are from nerves or excitement. 

Jughead is late. He’s texted to apologise, and that he’ll make it up to her, but already there’s a stab of disappointment and the weight of it is settling in her chest. She shelters under her umbrella for ten minutes until the chugging of his dad’s truck catches her attention. Its wipers are squeaking across the windscreen and he leaves the driver side door open as he rushes out into the falling rain. 

“Sorry!” he gasps. “My dad was… are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Betty says, and watches him as he blinks against the droplets. 

He nods towards the vehicle and says, “The heater’s on.”

Jughead looks as though he might be about to take her hand, but then must decide against it because before she knows it, they’re heading towards the truck and he’s opening the passenger door for her.

“Thanks,” she smiles, and feels those butterflies flutter again when he grins back.

He climbs in beside her and shuts the door, sealing them off from the weather. There’s a song playing on the radio whose lyrics talk about second chances and skies of hope, and Betty wonders whether he’s planned it like this.

“Where’re we going?” she asks, her eyes fixing on the sweep of dark, damp hair which is tumbling forwards over his eyes.

“You know the drive-in in Greendale?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s this old theatre in the town across Sweetwater. Hadn’t planned on it raining though.” His grin is wry but she thinks, maybe, she might detect nerves. “Snacks are the most important though, right? I got plenty.”

Jughead gestures behind him and she sees the plastic bag brimming with chips and candy, and it makes her smile. 

“It’s not far,” he says. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

He looks sincere in the way he says it - like he doesn’t want her to be scared. Incidentally, it makes  _ him _ look scared. (It reminds her of the way he’d clutched his beanie across from her in the booth at Pop’s the previous night, and she feels a lump form in her throat)

They ride in a relatively comfortable quiet and pull up in the parking lot, which is more of a muddy field than anything else. Jughead pulls on the handbrake, keeping the engine running, and asks whether she wants any popcorn or soda from the booth. Betty can see that he’s obviously dropped enough money in the grocery store that he won’t have much left, and besides, he seems to have the snack selection covered.

“I’m good,” she says, “Thanks,” and his lips twitch like he wants to say something in response. Whatever it is though, he keeps it to himself, and suddenly she feels like she’s back in the Wyrm Hole with its darkness and the vibrating tattoo gun that had inked the dandelion clock into her skin.

Finally, he says a simple, “Okay,” and reaches around the seat to grab the bag from the back. “What would you like?”

“What do you have?”

“Uh…” he starts, and then proceeds to display all of the items across the dashboard. She picks Skittles and regular salted chips, and Jughead smiles and says, “Good choice.”

He’s wearing a blue sweater beneath his sherpa jacket, and it makes his eyes look striking against his olive skin. Her mouth waters and it makes her realise that even after everything, she still finds him incredibly attractive. 

“You okay?” he asks, and Betty almost jumps, clutching her two packets tighter. 

“Yeah, sorry. Just…” she changes the subject. “What’re you going for?”

“Everything that’s left,” he replies and they both chuckle, normal teenagers hanging out for a moment. That is, after all, what this is supposed to be.

From the billboards either side of the field-cum-parking-lot, she can see that the movie scheduled to play is The Breakfast Club.

“Have you ever seen it before?” she asks him. “The movie I mean.”

“No,” he answers. “Have you?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s supposed to be a cult classic.”

“I heard that,” she says. 

They watch the movie without chatting, and out of the corner of her eye Betty can see the boy next to her stuffing Swedish Fish into his mouth, seemingly without even chewing. Throughout the various scenes of the gang in the library and running through the halls, she also sees Jughead’s head turn several times in her direction as if he might be about to say something, and yet he remains quiet. 

Eventually though, the movie finishes and Betty presses her fingers against her palms as she waits for him to say something. She still wants to kiss him; can feel a mild stirring in the pit of her stomach that she knows means her body wants  _ more _ than just a kiss; and yet they both just sit there with twitching fingers and increasingly shallow breaths.

“Where do your parents think you are?” he asks, eventually breaking the silence, and she feels guilty for her subsequent answer.

“Veronica’s.”

Jughead nods. 

Wondering if he’s asked that on purpose to tip the guilt scales in his favour, she throws the question back. “How about your dad? Where does he think you are?”

He shrugs. “Out, I guess.”

It’s tense for a few moments and she deliberates yet again whether this - being here with Jughead Jones, is a mistake. A horn honks signalling that they need to move, and Jughead maneuvers the gear shift accordingly.

“Do you want to go back?”

Betty blinks at him, not quite sure what he means. She’d thought that was the obvious - they do  _ have _ to go back, but then he elaborates.

“I just…. I thought maybe we could grab a milkshake at Pop’s? We don’t have to, I mean, I can drop you -”

“- Juggie,” she interrupts, surprised at her use of the pet name which had slipped out so effortlessly. It makes her think of his trailer and bare skin; his body pressed against hers and an ache that makes her press her thighs together. She forces herself to keep her tone even when she says, “A milkshake sounds great.”

His eyes are soft and shining when he looks at her, and it reminds her of before she knew about the bet; of when she’d been cold in his bed and he’d wrapped her in that ratty old blanket. Jughead’s fingers twitch and she thinks he might be about to move his hand over hers when he says,

“Okay.” 

Yet again, he keeps his distance, and she tries not to feel too disappointed.

  
  
  
  
  


After sitting in his preferred booth in the warmth of Pop’s diner for close to an hour, Jughead drops her off at the end of her street so she can walk the final block. She thinks (for what may or may not be the millionth time that evening) that he might be about to kiss her. It’s perhaps no longer surprising when he doesn’t.  

Betty’s hair is damp again by the time she reaches the front door, and her mom is sitting at a perfect ninety degree angle on the couch when she enters.

“Elizabeth,” she chides. “It’s past eleven. Where were you?”

She feels her cheeks flush. “Sorry mom. We were just at Pop’s.” It’s not a lie. “I guess I lost track of time.”

Alice’s eyes narrow. “I don’t like you walking these streets at such a late hour.”

“It’s not New York; I’m hardly going to get attacked in Riverdale,” Betty argues. Part of the problem, she suspects, is that she was at Pop’s - a place of calorie-laden food and drinks with the kind of lighting that makes the skin take on an otherworldly palour.

Her mom nods and announces that the rain has smudged her makeup. “You should wash your face before it clogs your pores.”

She’s happy enough to leave at that, and heads upstairs to the bathroom. She passes Polly on the landing who’s clutching a hot water bottle against her stomach as she asks,

“Did you have a good time?”

Her tone indicates she suspects her sister wasn’t at Veronica’s, and Betty’s honest when she answers. “Yes. It was nice.”

Polly smiles knowingly. “I’m glad.”

“You’re cold?”

“Cramps,” her sister replies. “If mom wasn’t around I’d be making a dent in the ice cream too.”

Betty gives her a sympathetic smile and bids her goodnight, heading into the bathroom to wash her face. It’s only when she looks in the mirror that she realises she hasn’t had her own cramps to deal with in a while. 

In over a month.

Her face grows hot and her hands feel clammy. She scrubs at her face, removing the mascara and then anxiously scrubbing much longer at non-existent remnants of eyeliner until her skin stings. 

_ You used protection, _ she tells herself.  _ Every time. _

And yet, back in her bedroom, she works backwards through her diary, counting the weeks since her last period: five.

She knows she’s been stressed and anxious; upset about the bet and everything that entailed, and she knows, too, that that can affect her cycle. She climbs into bed rationalising her late period, and her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

**Goodnight x** Jughead’s message reads, and she quickly types the same back. She doesn’t expect the return text to say what it does, and the jolt it sends through her mixes thrill with dread.

**Maybe next time I’ll kiss you.**

Betty turns out the lamp and tries to sleep.


	2. Confusing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, this is a day later than planned because, if I’m honest, I was so busy getting drunk yesterday with my Easter party guests that I didn’t get chance to post. Having just got the time between this morning’s clean-up and this afternoon’s party, I’m giving you chapter two.
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented and left kudos last chapter. I promise I’ll get around to personally replying to each one, but figured you’d rather just have chapter 2 first.
> 
> Ali has made a playlist for this chapter which you can find the link to on Tumblr through either my blog or hers (@alicat-gotyourtongue)

There’s a light, almost swooping feeling in Jughead’s stomach when he reaches Sunnyside. He’s been driving around for the last twenty minutes, taking in the sights of the north side and generally avoiding returning to his father and their trailer so as to prolong his good mood. 

As he draws closer to their lot, he can see rising cigarette smoke. By the time he rolls the truck to a stop, he can make out Penny Peabody leaning against the wooden rails of the trailer’s steps. She continues to drag on the cigarette as he climbs out, not bothering to lock the door. 

“Jones,” she drawls on an exhale. 

“Penny.”

“You’re out late.”

“It’s Saturday night.”

She flicks the cigarette butt onto the ground and lets the damp snuff it out, and watches him. 

“What’re you doing here?”

She shrugs, but he knows she knows. There’s always a motive.

“I’m not interested in doing anything with you.”

“Thought that girlfriend of yours wasn’t sniffing around any more.”

At the mention of Betty, Jughead feels anger rise in his stomach. He clenches his jaw and decides not to speak, feeling his muscles tick with the sheer effort of it. 

“Good night, Penny.”

He doesn’t wait for her to leave, just climbs up the aching steps and jams the door open. His dad isn’t home - is almost definitely at the Wyrm - and he heads to bed before anything can sour his mood. 

  
  
  
  
  


He doesn’t see Betty on Sunday, but he catches her Monday morning in biology. She’s dressed in a jeans skirt with a pink cardigan that has cherries on it, and Jughead’s overwhelming urge is to press his lips up against her ear lobe, tug it down roughly and then say, “I want to take that off you later.”

He doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, under his new  _ doing it right this time _ umbrella, he says,

“I like your cardigan.”

She blushes and tugs on the sleeve self-consciously, and immediately he feels like he’s gotten it wrong.

“Saturday was fun,” he tries again. 

Betty is still ducking her head and so he takes his seat, rubbing hand hands over his jeans to work some warmth back into them. Saturday night’s snacks didn’t leave enough money left over for the new pair of gloves he needs, but, he thinks as he eyes Betty’s legs under the table, it’s worth it. 

The bell rings, their teacher begins his lesson on ecology and Jughead watches the girl beside him doodle absently across the notepad on their desk. 

Later, he walks her to geography and struggles not to press her against the lockers as they pass. He considers whether, in a couple weeks or so, she might sneak off to the bathroom with him rather than listen to Mr Watson drone on about ethical implications He chances taking her hand in his, and she gasps when he links their fingers.

“Sorry,” he starts, “I -”

“- Your hands are so cold,” she says, and strokes her thumb over his skin. He’s not sure quite what the feeling is swooping in his chest. It’s like Saturday night (only more wild) and on a crest he asks,

“Can I take you out again?”

It takes longer than he hopes it would for her to answer, but finally Betty says, 

“That would be nice.”

He grins at her and she smiles back and he thinks about how much time he wasted before.

“Have fun in geography,” he says, and she squeezes his hand in response. In Jughead’s own second period class, Sweet Pea rips him for being  _ gone over North Side Princess,  _ and despite his first instinct being to defend that, all he does is lift his middle finger. 

Sweet Pea laughs and shakes his head but Toni shoves him and winks at Jughead, and he wonders whether his dad might sub him enough cash to take Betty out to dinner that coming weekend. 

  
  
  
  
  


“That damn tattoo parlour’s never open,” FP says when he gets home. It’s unusual to see him sitting at their little kitchen table - especially straight after school - but there are no empty brown bottles huddled on the counter side, and the living room is pretty tidy. 

“Fangs is there,” Jughead tells him. 

“Can he draw?”

“He can draw the designs we have.”

His dad lifts his head from where it’s resting against his middle and index fingers. “You know what I mean.”

Jughead swallows. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“You’d better,” FP says. “You ain’t gonna make any money while you’re not there.”

He clears his throat and takes a chance. “Uh.... speaking of, I uh…. I don’t suppose you could lend me some? Money I mean.”

“Your motorcycle run out of gas?”

“No,” he replies. “It’s for… I wanted to take Betty out.” Hearing it aloud makes him cringe internally. 

“Out?”

“For dinner.”

He half expects his dad to scoff or make some sort of joke about fancy-ass northsiders, or tell him to get drawing at the fucking Wyrm Hole, but he doesn’t. Instead, he points to his leather jacket hung up by the door and says, “Bring my wallet.”

Jughead does as he’s told and watches as his father counts out four ten dollar bills. “Here.”

He takes it gratefully, stuffing the bills into his pocket. “Thanks.”

“Betty huh? Thought she stopped coming around.”

He shrugs and squeezes his toes in his boots. Perhaps FP notices his reluctance to elaborate, and Jughead feels a sense of relief when he says, “Guess I was wrong. You have homework?”

He nods and his dad rises from his chair. “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee then.”

Once it’s ready, he takes his steaming mug to his room, not to make a start on his science homework, but so he can send Betty a text without his dad being around. He types the message out at least three times, deleting and retyping, thinking far too hard about how to tell her he wants to take her to the little Italian place they passed on the way to the drive-in in Greendale.

(And how to tell her he wants to do  _ other _ things too)

Her reply comes after a good hour, during which he tries (and fails) to understand what the textbook is telling him. His phone buzzes and he tries not to snatch it up; tries not to look desperate.

He  _ isn’t _ desperate. Not to take  _ Betty Cooper _ on a date.

But, he finds, he  _ does  _ want to. 

Jughead grins like a fucking idiot at the words on the screen:  **I’ll meet you at the end of the street** and brings up the thumbs up emoji before thinking better of it and settling on, simply, **I’ll pick you up at 7.**

  
  
  
  
  


On Friday night, after a day of classes which drag (and not necessarily because he has a date that evening) he waits for her at the end of her block, and this time, he’s early. He keeps the truck’s engine running so it’ll be warm when she climbs in, and lights a cigarette to take the edge off of his nerves. Last weekend at the drive-in was one thing.

This - a date at a proper restaurant with linen table cloths - is something else.

He’s lighting up his second cigarette (leaving only three more left in the pack) when Betty comes into view. She’s wearing a coat but he can tell the lack of visible material that the dress underneath is one he hasn’t seen before - one that she hasn’t worn for school - and it’s paired with tights and boots and…  _ fuck, _ now he’s thinking about peeling off those tights.

Jughead takes a long final drag of his smoke and stubs it out against the side of the truck. There’s at least half left and so he slides it back into the packet in his pocket and whistles before he can stop himself.

Betty ducks her head but he can tell there’s a smile tugging at her lips, and his heart soars a little before he can put a stop to it. He holds the passenger side door open for her and climbs in himself at the other side, slamming the door shut a little too vigorously so that the truck shakes.

“You look nice,” she says breathily. “I like your shirt.”

He doesn’t tell her it’s his funeral shirt: the single button-down he owns (and has only ever worn twice in his life) and that he feels so fucking uncomfortable in it that he wishes he’d gone with the grey ‘S’ t-shirt he feels most at home in. 

“Thanks,” he decides to say aloud. And then, “I like your dress.”

She presses her lips together and he thinks it must be nerves, and he hits the accelerator. 

At the restaurant, Jughead parks up between two sedans which are decidedly better looking than the truck, and questions why he didn’t just take her to some hole-in-the-wall burger joint or taco place where the reason he stands out isn’t that he’s poor.

“It looks good,” Betty tells him so that he’s reminded of why he’s doing this, and he just hopes his $40 will cover two entrees and drinks. There are some sour gummy worms in the glove box left over from last week’s drive-in snack stash, and he decides to himself that if he can’t afford dessert, at least they can get a sugar hit from somewhere. 

He thinks about taking her hand but when he glances to the side, he sees her arms are folded.

The hostess greets them in a way that Jughead wonders whether she knows Betty. It’s friendly -  _ too  _ friendly, he thinks, to be sincere - but she does offer to take their coats at least, and he’s rewarded for his efforts with the sight of Betty in a deep v-cut black dress. He can see the round swell of both of her tits, and simultaneously his mouth dries as his palms sweat. 

“Fuck, Cooper,” he says as the hostess leaves them to their seats. The table is tucked towards the back of the restaurant and he’s almost disappointed that not more people will see them. That not more people will see  _ her _ .

Betty’s cheeks pinken like they always do, and she ducks her head when she says, “The dress is Polly’s.”

_ I don’t care whose it is, _ he thinks.  _ I want to take it off. _

“Good evening,” a voice greets them from seemingly nowhere. When he looks up from Betty’s chest, Jughead finds a waiter looking at him expectantly. “Can I get you a bread basket while you peruse the menus? Some olives?”

He feels himself start to panic. He can’t ask whether or not they’re free (and assumes they won’t be) but he doubts he can afford two entrees, drinks  _ and  _ unexpected extras. Betty catches his eye and either she’s not hungry, or she can read him perfectly because she says,

“No thank you. Maybe just some water?”

The waiter nods and Jughead discovers that his fists are clenched beneath the white table cloth. “You can have the bread,” he tells her, but it’s too abrupt. Too curt. His cheeks feel hot and it’s no longer because he’s thinking about the bra she must have on under that dress.

“Oh,” Betty exhales. “I just thought… I didn’t want to spoil my pasta.”

He knows he should apologise for the out-of-place bluntness but he doesn’t want to draw any more attention to it so he focuses on the entrees, scanning the numbers rather than the names of the dishes. It pisses him off more than it should that they’re not accompanied by dollar signs.

She decides aloud that she’ll have the pomodoro (incidentally, the cheapest meal on the menu) and he’s relieved that he can get the bolognese, one sparkling grape juice and one coke with five dollars to spare. It means the tip will be less than it should, but he figures it’s a small price to pay.

  
  
  
  
  


There’s an awkward pause every so often that Jughead isn’t sure how to fill. He’s trying not to shovel in the spaghetti the way he would at home, and is only  _ partly _ failing. Betty is taking such miniscule forkfuls from her dish that he’s starting to wonder whether the sauce tastes as bland as it has sounded on the menu. 

“What’re your hobbies?” he chances between mouthfuls of pasta.

Betty blinks at him and he feels his cheeks heat. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”

He swallows, ashamed but immediately defensive. “Why would I...I’m not... “ he swallows again. “I just thought it was something I should ask.” He adds a shrug for good measure. “You don’t have to answer.”

She dabs the napkin at the corner of her mouth in the same way he’s seen rich people do in movies. It looks both real and acted at the same time. “I like baking. But you know that.”

Jughead takes a sip of coke for something to do with his mouth before speaking. “You’re good at it. What’s your favourite thing to make?”

Betty watches him, again as though she’s unsure of his sincerity, but answers nonetheless. “Cupcakes.”

“Vanilla, right?”

“They’re my signature ones,” she tells him, taking a sip of her own drink. “Not my favourites.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And your favourites are?”   
“S’mores.”

He groans aloud without thinking. “They sound fucking amazing.”

As usual, she dips her head, cheeks flushing pink, but there’s a grin at her mouth. “They’re pretty good,” she says quietly, and he almost doesn’t hear her because his mind has rapidly gone to a place where it’s thinking about licking frosting off of her finger... and then off of  _ other _ places too.

“What about you?” Betty asks. The straw from her drink rests on the soft pillow of her bottom lip as she speaks, and he wants to run his tongue along her skin. “What do you like to do as a hobby?”

He thinks about whether or not to be truthful; whether to feed her some bullshit about riding around on bikes and causing hell in other towns, but something stops him. Instead, Jughead tells her, “I sketch.”

“Yeah?”

“Mostly tattoo designs, but sometimes other stuff.”

“Like what?” she questions.

He decides not to tell her any more - that’s quite enough for now - and shrugs. “Just stuff.”

The straw slips from her lip and she sets the glass back on the table. The condensation has left a ring on the tablecloth. He doesn’t know what question he’s supposed to ask her next.

  
  
  
  
  


They ride back to Riverdale in a sort-of uneasy quiet. The truck’s radio is playing but the sound isn’t great quality, and he steps on the gas to get them home a little faster. By the time they reach the park where he’d picked her up, he can see that Betty is biting her lip and wringing her hands. She’s nervous.

“Thank you,” she says when the truck reaches a stop on the asphalt. “For dinner, I mean.”

“You’re welcome.”

It’s quiet again. Uneasy again.

“Jughead -” she starts, but he cuts her off, tugging gently on her wrist to pull her to him so he can kiss her. Her lips are sweet - like the grape juice she drank earlier has mixed with her chapstick: a fruit salad of sorts - and he slides his tongue into her mouth. She makes a noise, not really a moan, but also not far off, and it vibrates down his throat. Already he can feel the effect on his dick, and he slips a hand between the silky material of her dress and the inside of her coat to slide over where he knows her tattoo is.

Her hands come up to stroke his face and her fingertips are soft against his jaw. It makes goosebumps tingle along his arms.

He’s at half-mast, a dangerous crossroads where, if he’s going to turn back - if he’s not going to fuck her in the front seat of his dad’s truck beside a kids’ park - it has to be now. And so he wrenches himself away, almost caving when the noise Betty makes sounds like one of protest.

Her eyes open and she looks half-drunk. Jughead can’t help but smirk.

“There’s a party tomorrow night at the Wyrm. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

She climbs out without reply, just a nod until she remembers her manners. “Thank you for the ride.”

His mind conjures up a different meaning for those words but he says, “I’ll bring the bike tomorrow.”

He watches her walk along the street until it disappears around a curve, and then makes a u-turn. 

Later, in the shower, he spills over his hand while thinking of Betty’s tattoo and her mouth on his dick.

  
  
  
  


He doesn’t expect the message that arrives mid-afternoon:  **I sorry but I can’t make it tonight.**

Jughead debates not texting back, just picking her up regardless, but then he finds himself grabbing his phone every few minutes to compose a reply, getting stuck for what to say. In the end, he asks what’s come up in a bid to work out whether she’s making up an excuse.

Betty’s response takes a while to come, and when it does, it’s brief: cramps. She  _ does _ add a kiss, but he’s disappointed. 

**Feel better** he tells her, meaning it, yet pissed off all the same, and goes back to the feather tattoo design he’s been working on. He gets no reply, and the design that had started out as soft and light ends up being dark and angular. 

He tears the paper from the pad, screws it up and tosses it to the side. Sweet Pea looks up from where he’s inking a cliched star onto some senior he vaguely recognises, but says nothing.

The party is in full swing when Jughead arrives. The floor is sticky with spilled alcohol and the air is heavy with humidity. Heavy with sweat. The place smells like the dive bar it is, and he spots Toni and Cheryl in the far corner. Penny is behind the bar, sneering at him when he asks for a coke; smirking when she adds vodka and he’s then forced to pour it out into the sink below the thick wood surface. He slams the glass down and joins his oldest friend in her favoured booth, his mind wandering to Betty’s bedroom as he imagines her curled up reading. 

It doesn’t make him glad he’s where he is - more the opposite. He wants to join her.

“Hey Jones,” Toni greets him, nodding when Cheryl raises a perfectly manicured hand.

“Topaz.”

“Where’s Betty?”

“At home,” he replies. “She’s sick.”

Toni raises both eyebrows and he knows she’s questioning the validity of the statement.

He shrugs. “Have I missed anything?”

“Those two idiots you call your best friends have waged some sort of loser-has-to-get-a-stupid-tattoo bet.”

“On?”

“How many drinks it takes Tall Boy to pass out.”

Jughead thinks, inexplicably, of Betty again.

Later, Toni catches him staring at his phone outside of the bathrooms, and gives him a knowing look. “You can always go over there you know,” she says. “Check to see how she’s feeling. Take her some grapes.”

“Grapes?”

“It’s what you take for sick people. Haven’t you seen movies where one of the characters is sick? Someone always brings grapes when they visit.”

“Grapes,” he repeats, like there’s something wrong with him.

Toni nods with a smirk. “And magazines.”

  
  
  
  
  


In a throwback to  _ before,  _ Jughead  _ does  _ decide to ride over there and visit her via her bedroom window, though minus the grapes and magazines. Once he makes the decision, he can’t get out of there fast enough. Ginger Lopez catches him on the way out but he brushes her off, snaking his way through the crowd and out into the parking lot. 

The air is freezing and it nips at his skin as he rides across town, his fingers raw and numb with cold. He passes Pop’s with its neon lights: a signpost marking the two sides of town, and crosses over to the north side. The motorcycle’s juddering vibrates throughout his body, even when he reaches the top of Elm Street and kills the engine so as not to alert Betty’s parents. He walks it until he’s outside of Archie Andrews’ house and then sets the kickstand against the asphalt.

Her curtains aren’t closed when he makes it around the side of the house. The glow of light from her bedroom is soft, and he’s quick to retrieve the ladder from its home inside the garage. 

The fact that it’s now unlocked again makes his chest feel lighter.

Before he climbs up, Jughead picks a couple stones from the plant pots positioned beside the wall and skims them upwards against Betty’s bedroom window. It takes a couple tries before he sees any movement, but then she appears between the parted curtains. He grins up at her and starts to climb the ladder, reaching the top just as she slides the window open enough that he can climb through.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks, self-consciously folding her arms across her chest. “I thought you were at the party?”

Her hair is twisted on the top of her head and her pajamas have pictures of clouds on them, and his first urge is to laugh. Not  _ at _ her, but because she looks ridiculously cute standing there in fluffy pink socks with a confused expression.

“I was.” He takes her hand, tugging her towards him so he bumps back into her bed. “But I kind of missed you, so…”

“I’m too tired to come out tonight,” Betty says, rubbing at her eyes. They  _ are _ red, he notes to himself, and he’s a little taken aback by his immediate urge to stroke his fingers across the sore skin. 

“That’s not why I’m here,” he says, lowering his voice when her eyes slide towards her bedroom door. “Honestly. I just wanted to see you.”

She pulls free of his grasp to slide the window closed, and Jughead registers how warm her room is. “I don’t think I’ll be much company,” she replies. 

He steps closer and her gaze lifts to meet his. He shrugs. “We could watch a movie? You don’t have to talk. We could just...lie in bed. Or sit? We could sit if that’s… if -”

“-It’s not that,” Betty tells him. “You  _ really _ just want to watch a movie while I fall asleep ten minutes in?”

He does, he realises. That’s exactly what he wants. And yet, his shoulders shrug of their own accord - like they’re so used to the action that they assume it’s what they need to do.

“You have a lot of pillows.”

“They’re for decoration.”

“They look comfy.”

This time, it’s Betty who shrugs. “They are.”

Jughead takes the lead, removing his jacket and discarding it on the floor beside the bed. He settles back against the pillows and is hit with the scent of her hair: sweet, musky vanilla and strawberries. It makes his mouth water.

There’s a laptop on the edge of the other side of the bed, and she grabs it before joining him - albeit tentatively. She angles the screen away and he listens to a series of clicks before the Netflix home screen appears as she turns the screen back so they can both see it. He’s mildly curious about what it was she didn’t want him to see, but decides not to ask. 

Betty circles the choices until she eventually passes the laptop his way. “You choose,” she says. “I don’t mind what we watch.”

He debates a few horror films - that way she might press herself closer - but decides eventually on Dallas Buyers Club.

“This okay?” he asks as the opening credits roll and Betty makes no attempt to side against him. 

“It’s fine,” she says quietly. No more elaboration - just those two words - and he wonders whether he should’ve just stayed at the party. But then -  _ then _ \- he chances an arm over the top of her two pillows and she inches fractionally closer. 

He tries not to smile.

By the time she’s repeated her movements enough that her head is skimming his shoulder, Jughead can smell her hair and feel her warmth and is forced to bite the smugness out of his lips. 

  
  
  
  
  


Betty falls asleep as promised. It’s a little further than ten minutes in, but her breaths even out and deepen, and Jughead finds himself paying more attention to the girl beside him than the movie. 

She stirs and mumbles and, without thinking, he kisses her forehead. It makes his stomach flip and his chest feel tight. It makes him want to simultaneously run away and never leave her bed. When fingers twitch against his chest and he can hear the kettle whistle downstairs, he decides to stay just a little while longer. 


	3. Confessing

She’s turned into Polly. It doesn’t feel like she thought it would. It doesn’t feel like that euphoric moment she’s seen in movies or read about in books either.

It feels like a mistake. 

The test mocks her from the vanity unit and she snatches it up, wrapping toilet paper around it to hide the letters which spell out that she is, in fact, pregnant. She thinks of that night Jughead had come over - when she’d lied that she’d gotten her period because she was embarrassed to tell him she was sore from sex with him; from when she’d told him to fuck her. Which he had. He’d _ fucked _ her.

And then fucked  _ with _ her too.

Her cheeks feel like they’re burning and there’s a sting at her left palm: her nails, she realises, digging in. She fights the urge to keep digging and draws them back, noting the blood under the beds. 

It’s a long time before she can summon the courage to leave the bathroom, and when she finally does, it’s to cry alone in her room. Betty pulls the sheets up over her head and sandwiches her face between two pillows so the feathers will hide the noise. 

  
  
  
  
  


A few days later, when she’s exhausted from acting, she dresses for school in pastel green - a nod to the upcoming (yet seeimgly far away) springtime - and sets out to catch the bus. Polly is getting her ride from Chuck Clayton, and is therefore still sipping coffee as Betty heads out of the door.

Her thick coat is a stark contrast to the cardigan and shirt underneath, and she’s glad of it when the wind stings her cheeks and makes her eyes water. Rather than the yellow school bus her mom thinks she’s boarding, she catches the public one from the road leading out of town towards Greendale, and takes a seat near the back. Nobody else joins her and she hears the hiss of air as it pulls away from the curb, the pictures she’s been working so hard not to let her mind form winning out as the bus winds its way along the road. It’s the same road Jughead had driven her along for their date at the little Italian restaurant where, she knows, he’d been able to afford only an entree and drink each. He’d been so nervous - more nervous than perhaps she’s seen him - and everything inside of her had softened even more the following night when he’d left the party to come and see her.

Betty sees in her mind Jughead’s face when she tells him she’s pregnant; sees _ Archie’s  _ face when she tells him she’s pregnant; sees her mom’s horrified expression and Polly’s sympathetic one and Veronica saying, _ there are things you can do.  _ She sees herself in a trailer with Jughead gone until late; a crib in the corner and the ends of her fingers red and numb with cold. And then that picture gives way to a house with wooden floors and a window which faces her bedroom and a little boy with red hair and a baseball jacket who calls Archie  _ daddy  _ when he returns.

Did Polly picture anything like this? She wonders. Did she ride a bus or catch the subway to a clinic for a doctor to confirm what she already knew? Did she chew her fingernails so much on the way there that they bled and stung?

Did  _ she _ use protection every time and  _ still  _ create something unintentional?

  
  
  
  
  


The doctor at Greendale’s Family Medical Group confirms she’s around four weeks along. For some ridiculous reason, she feels relief. The baby -  _ fetus  _ \- whatever it is, is Jughead’s. That shouldn’t be a good thing -  _ isn’t  _ a good thing - but it’s one less complication in a myriad of fuck-ups she’s made since arriving in Riverdale.

This doesn’t involve Archie (after all, she’s involved him enough) so at least she can’t ruin his life too.

“There are options,” the doctor tells her, holding out leaflets with smiling people printed in ink that’s too bright for the situation. 

“A termination,” Betty finds herself saying.

“And adoption too,” is the reply. Then silence. Not the ‘or you could keep it’ that, technically,  _ is _ an option.

“Right.”

“Do you have someone you can talk this over with? A partner? Parent?”

_ No, _ she thinks.  _ No; no. _ “I’ve made up my mind.” There is, after all, no other option.

The doctor nods. “Okay.”

There’s a bin by the exit and she dumps both leaflets on her way out. A hailstorm starts up as she’s making her way to the bus stop, the pellets of ice stinging her skin, and hunger gnaws at her insides.

When the bus finally arrives, Betty is forced to sit in the only seat which is, coincidentally, next to a mother with a child bundled in a snowsuit, hat and scarf on her lap. Throughout the journey, the little girl holds her pudgy funger in Betty’s direction, but she can’t summon enough effort to smile. Her stomach growls angrily and when the bus drops her off a little over a block from Pop’s, she sinks her nails into her palms so the sting there outweighs the hunger. 

“Betty!” she hears, somewhere above the biting wind. “Hey!”

She knows the voice belongs to Jughead: doesn’t have to turn around to see him as confirmation, and yet, turn around she does. He’s dressed in full black: jeans, boots, his Serpents jacket; thick sweater beneath, and his riding helmet is tucked under his arm. The only hint of colour is the grey beanie atop his head (though she’s not sure grey even counts as a colour) and the redness of his freezing fingers. 

“You’re not at school,” she says, registering the time. Ironically, they’re supposed to have biology right now.

He smirks. “Neither are you.”

“I had an appointment.”

“Didn’t have you down as the kind of girl who skips class,” Jughead says with the kind of lilt in his voice that reminds her of the very first party she went to with him. It shouldn’t make her insides feel like goo but it does, and she gets mad at herself for not having resisted in the first place. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she finds herself saying, and is thrown off-guard by her own tone.

He shrugs, suddenly seeming smaller in stature; his voice turning quieter and more truthful. “I’m trying to find out.” He nods towards Pop’s. “Do you fancy some chilli cheese fries?”

Betty feels her mouth fill with saliva just at the thought. “I should probably get back to s-”

“-School?” he finishes. “C’mon Betts, we  _ both _ know you’re not really planning on going back just for final period.”

Maybe it’s the use of that nickname. Maybe it’s the way his eyes are twinkling. Maybe it’s the griping hunger, but she finds herself saying,

“Okay.”  

He smirks and she wants to run away. 

(She wants to kiss him too)

Pop brings them a large basket of fries loaded with so much chilli and cheese that it looks like a small volcano is seated on their table. Jughead hasn’t sat opposite her like she’d expected him to, but beside her. She can smell that musky, piney, cigarette combination that is uniquely  _ him _ and she inches just a little closer. 

If she didn’t have an embryo inside of her, Betty thinks she might just press herself fully against him.

“You hungry?” Jughead asks her, clearly noting the speed at which she’s demolishing her portion of the fries, and she swallows.

“I didn’t have any lunch.”

He slides the basket of deliciousness towards her. “You want me to get some onion rings?”

Onion rings sound amazing, she thinks, but there’ll be something plain at home for dinner that Alice will expect her to eat, and if she fills herself with grease then she’ll draw suspicion.

_ You’re eating for two,  _ her brain tells her viciously, and she pushes the basket back towards him. “No thanks. I’m pretty full.” 

It’s obvious that he doesn’t believe her, but he shrugs and stuffs more fries into his mouth. She doesn’t ask why he’s not in school either. 

They leave around the time the school bus is scheduled to make its drop off nearby, and she shivers in the freezing air. “My dad’s out tonight,” Jughead says. 

She looks at him.

“I have the trailer to myself.”

_ No, _ she thinks. _ Don’t go over there. _ Her mouth doesn’t form the words though, and she blinks stupidly at him. 

“I’m a pretty lousy cook but I can brew coffee and microwave popcorn.” He’s grinning and there’s a hopeful look in his eyes that makes her heart swoop. “I know it’s cold out but my dad fixed the heating so it won’t be as cold as…” He stops short of saying  _ last time  _ but Betty’s already picturing the freezing air and that old, ratty blanket he’d given her so she wouldn’t be cold.

She wonders, if he knew she was pregnant, whether he’d even be talking to her right now.

“Betty?”

“Yeah?”

“I said I can pick you up - if you want.”

“No!” she replies quickly. “No, it’s… I can walk.”

“Yeah?” he’s hopeful again and she smiles despite herself. 

“Yeah.”

“Eight o’clock okay?”

“Eight’s,” she nods. “Eight’s good.”

  
  
  
  
  


After dinner, Betty gets ready to go over to Jughead’s trailer in a sort-of blind daze. She changes the jeans she’d worn earlier to a different pair, and swaps her plain sweater for one with a fancier jewelled collar. She smooths balm across her lips and daren’t look at herself in the mirror once she’s done. 

“I hope that boy’s grateful for all of your help,” Alice says, looking over her glasses at the textbooks Betty has in her grasp. 

“He is.”

“Not too late Elizabeth,” her mom continues. “You have your own grades to think about.”

“I’ll be back by eleven.”

“Ten,” Alice replies sternly. “It’s a school night.”

She walks because it’s isn’t that far - not really - and the cold pinching at her skin takes over her thoughts about the embryo inside of her. It’s  _ not _ a baby, and she refuses to think of it as such (because really, that’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart)

It’s almost eight-fifteen when she makes it to Jughead’s trailer, and the wind has picked up despite the ground being lower lying than the north side.

He meets her at the door so she has no need to knock, and she knows before he even speaks that he’s going to kiss her. His lips are warm and she can feel him smiling against her skin, and then his tongue slips past hers and strokes the inside of her mouth. The textbook is jammed between them both and slips to the floor, landing on Betty’s feet. She jumps back, slightly in pain and bends to collect the book from the floor.

“We’re studying?” Jughead asks, his voice laced with mirth.

“It’s just a prop,” she replies. “So my mom didn’t…”

“Got it.”

Jughead closes the door and she finds he’d been right earlier: the trailer is much warmer than the last time she’d been there. The tv is on but the volume is low enough that she can’t hear what’s playing (can’t recognise it by sight either) and the air smells like freshly brewed coffee. 

She removes her coat and hangs it up next to the door beside Jughead’s leather Serpents jacket, smooths down the sleeve a couple times while she thinks about what to say, and then turns.

“You’ve got changed,” he says, noting her jewelled sweater. He strokes his forefinger along the collar, circling at her clavicle and then continues along the other side. 

Betty’s mouth has gone dry and there’s a very definite  _ something _ she can feel between her legs, but she composes herself just enough to reply. “So have you.”

He’s wearing a sweater she hasn’t seen before in dark grey, and as much as it matches the dark circles under his eyes, it makes him look like the stereotypical bad boy in every teen movie she’s seen, and a jolt shocks through her body all the way to her fingertips. What she wants is to reach out and touch the ribbed pattern over his chest, but she curls her fingers inwards instead. 

Jughead clears his throat. “I made coffee if you want some?”

“That’d be good,” she replies. “Thanks.”

He watches her as he pours, as if he can sense when the mugs are full enough, and despite its startling uncomfortableness, Betty can’t seem to avert her gaze either. He hands her mug over and seems to make sure their fingers touch, and her cheeks are hot when he finally looks away. 

“You wanna sit?” he nods towards the couch and she blindly heads over, not entirely sure her voice is working well enough to reply. 

In the two minutes she’s been here, she’s forgotten, she realises, that she’s pregnant. Now she’s back to remembering again, she’s sitting on the couch ramrod straight and there’s a couple inches between the two of them that she expects him to close instantly, yet he doesn’t.

Jughead hands her the remote. “You can choose,” he says. “I don’t mind what we watch.”   

She’s not even really aware of the movie she selects, but it’s something on the  _ recommended for you _ section so she figures he probably won’t hate it. The opening credits roll upwards and she swallows.

Around halfway through the movie, from the corner of her eye she sees Jughead unfold the blanket from the arm of the couch. 

“So you don’t get cold,” he says, and proceeds to move close enough that he can drape it over them both. 

“Thanks,” Betty manages, and forces herself to sit back against the relatively soft couch cushions. No more than a half minute later, he tugs her to him gently, and she ends up leaning against his arm. It’s much comfier - and warmer - and as he loops his arm so that it’s wrapped around her, she feels him press his lips into her hair.

Tears sting her eyes but she forces them away, and fixes her gaze solely upon the tv. She shouldn’t have agreed to come over to the trailer, she knows. Shouldn’t be this close to him on the couch; shouldn’t be letting him trail his fingers down her arm; shouldn’t be putting off what she knows she has to do.

The thought still strays into her consciousness - rogue and defiant - that she could keep it. That she could  _ manage. _

But she’s not stupid - she knows she can’t have a baby. Can’t have  _ Jughead’s _ baby.

Under the blanket, the hand that isn’t stroking her arm grazes her thigh, inching higher until her legs betray her by parting. When his fingers reach the button on her jeans, she clamps them shut and jerks away.

“I can’t do this,” she gabbles quickly, jumping up from the couch. “I can’t…. I … I should go.”

He’s blinking at her, confused. 

“I’ll walk,” Betty says before he can offer her a ride.

“Betts, hang…” she’s busy throwing her coat over her shoulders when he stops her. “Wait, Betty.” He’s blocking the door. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I shouldn’t have touched you, I…  _ shit! _ ” 

She reaches for the door handle but he blocks that too. “Please let me go,” she pleads, almost sobbing. “Please just let me -”

“-I’m sorry!” He sounds just as desperate. “I’m sorry, Betty, just… let me give you a ride okay? It’s cold and dark and-”

“-I just want to go.” She  _ is _ crying now, she realises. Tears that are hot and fat and clouding her vision and she gives up on the door handle, shielding her face with her hands. 

“Okay,” his voice is softer now; closer, like his mouth is beside her ear. “Okay baby.”

A sob that sounds as though it’s being strangled makes its way from her lungs and she feels his arms wrap around her. His chest is warm and she presses her face into his t-shirt, drawing in that smell of his. His hands stroke at her back and her hair and her neck, and she doesn’t want to leave - not really - but she has to. Has to get far enough away from him that she won’t curl into his side in a moment of weakness.

“It’s my fault,” he murmurs into her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“Jughead.” The words fly out of her mouth before she can stop them. “I’m pregnant.”


	4. Leaving

She’s pregnant.  _ Pregnant. _

“Fuck.”

He watches her cringe at the curse and he swallows thickly, his tongue heavy and far too big for his mouth. 

“I should go,” Betty says. 

There are tears streaking her cheeks and are eyes are so distant that it makes his whole body ache. Jughead watches as she opens the door and the trailer steps creak as she descends. It’s still fucking hailing in bursts and the ground outside is layered in a thin covering of white. 

“Betty -” he just about manages, and she turns with an expression that steals the rest of his words - whatever they were.The word rings in his ears like a siren. 

“- I don’t expect anything from you.”

He only realises, when he can no longer make out the back of her head in the darkness of the trailer park, that he’s crying.

  
  
  
  
  


There’s a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard. It’s some shitty brand, the print on the label blurred around the edges, but Jughead unscrews the lid and sloshes it into a glass anyway. A few drops spill on the counter and he leaves them there to grow sticky. 

The liquor burns his throat on the way down (burns his stomach as it settles there too) and he pours another finger, then another and other until he’s lost count of how many times the bottle has tipped up and back down again. 

What he wants to do, he thinks, is scream. He wants to throw things; to get on his bike and ride away; wants to ride to Betty’s house; wants to blame her and apologise and promise it’ll be okay; wants to be born in another life where it  _ is _ okay; wants to feel the stinging pierce of the tattoo gun; wants to lick his tongue over Betty’s dandelion clock (wants to bite it afterwards, too) wants to fuck her against the wall, the door, into the mattress; wants to hold her after and fall asleep with his nose in her hair; wants to get the fuck out of Riverdale.

That’s the thing he sticks on. Leaving.

He wakes later with a jolt. His head is pounding like a bass drum and his cheek is itchy where it’s resting against the couch. He’s half-slumped between the only piece of comfortable furniture in the trailer and the coffee table, and his neck is stiff when he straightens. 

“Well,” he hears FP’s gruff voice grunt out. “You look like shit.”

Jughead rubs a hand over his face and instantly regrets it when his vision is obscured, further than it already was, by a collection of black dots.

“Yeah? Well I feel worse.”

“Lady trouble?”

His dad shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up on the peg where Betty’s coat had been only a few hours ago. Jughead shrugs, but FP takes a seat on the table and he watches it bow a little under his old man’s weight. 

“Your eyes might be blue, son,” he says, “But they look just like mine did when your mom left.”

“She didn’t leave,” he finds himself saying stupidly - because that’s exactly what she  _ did  _ do.

“You have a fight?”

With what little strength he has left in him, Jughead hauls himself up off of the floor and past his father who reeks of cigarette smoke. Usually, it’s a smell that makes him want to light up himself, but tonight it leaves him feeling nauseous. 

“Jug?”

“Betty’s pregnant,” he replies flatly, eyes fixed on the floor. “I’m going to bed.”

  
  
  
  
  


He’s changing into pajama pants when FP opens the door.

“Jesus dad!” Jughead half-shouts, covering himself. “Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

“You got a girl pregnant!?”

_ Not a girl,  _ he finds himself thinking.  _ Betty. _ He doesn’t answer.

“Thought I told you enough times about using protection!”

“We did.”

His father drags his hand down his face so hard that the skin is white in its wake. He doesn’t say anything else.

Jughead doesn’t say anything else either.  

He spends the majority of the night awake, listening to the god-awful weather outside and trying to figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to do. No real plan forms and it’s not like there’s anyone he can ask for advice. 

Despite the fact that the trailer’s heating is now working again, the air around his face is still cold, and he pulls the comforter tighter around himself. It’s a cocoon - equally as shitty as the one he remembers making as a science project back in elementary school, when all they had around the trailer to use was toilet paper and Gladys’ grey nail polish.

He wonders about Betty and whether she’s awake too. Wonders what print she has on her pajamas tonight and if her phone is in her hand too, thumb hovering over the  _ send _ button. 

At a little after three am, he gives up on sleep altogether and heads into the kitchen to put the coffee pot on. He’s surprised to find FP is already there at the table, fingers cradling a mug of the very liquid he’s in search of himself. There is though, the bottle of whisky he’d drunk from earlier on the table, and so Jughead figures his dad’s drink is a little stronger than usual.

He can sense FP’s eyes on him while he grabs a mug and pours, and keeps his own cast downwards until he’s seated at the table too.

“When your mom told me she was pregnant with you…” he scrubs a hand over his face. “I threw up in the bathroom.”

_ Figures,  _ he thinks.

“Thought it was going to ruin my life.”

Jughead swallows a mouthful of coffee. It burns his throat. “Did it?”

“Felt like it sometimes. I had my out: had just got a place in the army BCT and your mom was standing there with this test and I already knew before she even told me what it said.” His dad shrugs. “That was it for the military. I went back to the Serpents so I was around to help her out.”

He struggles to swallow the second mouthful of coffee. “I didn’t know you wanted to join the army.”  _ He didn’t know there was anything before the Serpents either. _

FP shrugs again. “When you were born, I loved you right away. Same with Jellybean. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

His father’s subsequent sip is followed by another and then another before he answers. “You do what’s right.”

  
  
  
  
  


He doesn’t go to school the following day. Instead, he opens up the Wyrm Hole and sets to work on some new designs. His clients are few and far between, but they’re still more than they’d have if he were at school and the parlour was closed, so Jughead counts it as a small win. 

He thinks of Betty the whole time; thinks of what his dad had told him at the kitchen table; thinks of the day his mom left and his dad had cried and he wonders whether everything FP had given up to stay there had seemed like a waste.  

He doesn’t feel the same way his dad had described. He’s not happy about it - nowhere near - but the thought of having a baby with Betty, though far from ideal, is more daunting than horrifying. It wouldn’t be the  _ worst _ thing in the world. If he tries, he decides, he can be a decent dad.

That night, after dinner comprising of frozen spaghetti and meatballs, he rides to Elm Street and kills the bike’s engine a couple houses before Betty’s place. The garage is unlocked and he secures the ladder against the white siding, foregoing his usual cigarette before climbing up. 

Her curtains are closed so he knocks lightly. There’s a glow from behind them so he figures she’s likely to be in there, and when the curtains don’t twitch, he knocks again - a little louder this time. 

When they finally  _ do _ open, he’s met with Betty’s tear-stained face. She doesn’t appear to be crying as she slides the window up, but the redness around her eyes gives away the fact that she has been.

Jughead slides the window shut behind him. “Hey.”

She blinks and swallows. “Hey.”

He waits for her to say something else and when she doesn’t, the pause lasts far too long. He decides, perhaps incorrectly, to fill it. “Last night, when you told me that you’re… sorry I didn’t say anything.”

“You did say something,” she returns. “You said: _ fuck. _ ”

He cringes and forces himself to swallow. “It caught me off guard. I didn’t mean…”

“I think you  _ did _ mean it,” Betty replies with a shrug. “It’s okay. It’s… I mean, it’s not like you were expecting it.”

“Still,” he says. “Not exactly what you wanted to hear.”

She’s quite for a good few seconds until she seems to decide aloud, “No, I guess not.”

Jughead shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I was thinking today about what we could do.”

Betty only blinks at him, and so he continues. “I can earn some money at the Wyrm Hole but I’ll need to get another job. We can save up and get married in the courthouse when the weather’s a little better, then -”

“- Get married?” she blinks again. 

“I mean, isn’t that what people do when they’re in this situation?”

“Jughead,” she starts. “No. I don’t… we can’t get  _ married _ .”

“Betty-”

“- I’m not keeping it.” Her tone is flat, like she’s just told him the square root of sixty-four is eight. “The… it’s… ”

“ _ What? _ ”

“I‘m getting an abortion.”

Jughead’s ears burn and his skin feels way too hot, but she’s still talking. “ We can’t raise a baby - especially one that was made because you bet someone you could get me to sleep with you.”

“Fuck!” He clasps his hands behind his head and presses against his skull hard enough that it momentarily distorts his vision. “Betts, I’m sorry, I… I’m really,  _ really _ sorry.”

She’s crying again and there’s a lump in his throat threatening to choke every last breath out of him. “I know.” She sniffs and folds her arms across her chest. “But I can’t have a baby.”

“Maybe we could -”

“-I talked to Polly. She’s coming with me to the clinic.” she wipes at her eyes but it makes no difference because she’s still crying. He feels like the biggest asshole in the world. “My appointment is next Wednesday.”

There’s a heavy thud inside of his stomach; a sting in his chest; a ringing in his ears. 

“If you’re doing this because you think I won’t step up -”

“- I’m doing it because I don’t want it,” Betty cuts in flatly. “I think I at least deserve to make that decision.” She wipes at her eyes again furiously. “You should go.”

“Betts -”

“- Please Jug.”

She has him at the nickname. With the tone of her voice. With that look in her eyes. 

He nods and makes to kiss her cheek, but she dodges him with a duck of her head. He’s the one who slides her window open, and then hears it shut before he’s reached the bottom of the ladder. He puts it back in the garage, closes the door and lights up a cigarette, wondering if it’s the last time he’ll ever be in her room.

_ She doesn’t want his baby. _

He doesn’t blame her.

  
  
  
  
  


Toni is walking past the Jones trailer, hands plunged deep into the pockets of her jacket, when Jughead is securing his helmet back on his head. The streetlamp highlights her frown and she crosses the road towards him, eyes taking in the holdall he’s carrying.

“You going somewhere?”

“I need to get away,” he tells her, hoisting the bag onto the back of the bike.

Her eyes narrow. “Everything okay?”

“Sure.”

“Really?” she asks. “‘Cause it kinda seems like you’re running.”

“So what if I am?”

“You wanna talk about it?”

He fastens his helmet. “No.”

“ _ Jughead - _ ”

“-Do me a favour Topaz,” he says. “Don’t tell Betty.”

“What -”

“-I’ll see you.”

He starts up the engine before she can keep him any longer; before she can ask any questions, revving a couple times before accelerating off onto the road leading out of their shitty trailer park.

The air, thought freezing, feels good against his skin. He guns the throttle and speeds around the snaking road out of town, letting the wind sting the skin that the helmet doesn’t cover; letting it take all feeling out of his fingers so his hands move on instinct rather than precision. Eventually, the road straightens out and he takes the exit onto I-90 towards Toledo.

Jughead knows that’s not his real destination (never is) but for now it’s a route - the only one he ever seems to follow when he needs to get out of town.

He drives until his eyes grow heavy under the weight of tiredness, and pulls off the road somewhere along Lake Erie, just past Buffalo. He uses the bills he took from his dad’s freezer stash to pay for the motel room, and takes his key from the outstretched hand of an obviously bored middle-aged woman behind the counter. 

“Wifi code’s your room number,” she tells him before effectively signing off duty for the evening. 

The room is bland and smells a little musty, but it’s warm enough and far enough away from Riverdale that nobody will find him. Not that anyone is likely to come looking, but still.

_ I’m not keeping it,  _ he hears Betty’s voice say over and over, and he lets the water from the shower scald his skin.


	5. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware of the tags in this fic. Check before you read this chapter and if any of them offend you, you might want to sit this one out.

The rain bounces down at the asphalt. It’s pretty fitting, Betty decides, for today. She pulls the flap of her left mitten over her fingers, then passes her umbrella to the same hand so she can repeat the action on her right hand.

She sighs unintentionally and feels Polly’s gentle squeeze at her arm. It’s a little less hard - now that her sister knows - but every step towards the bus stop feels like torture. Trust her mom to need the car today of all days.

They don’t talk on the ride to Greendale, nor when they step off the bus and head in the direction of the clinic, and Betty speaks only to confirm her name to the receptionist.

“Take a seat,” she says, and Betty does as she’s told, sitting down on some hard plastic opposite a girl who looks around her age too.

She pulls out her phone for no other reason than it’s something to do with her hands that doesn’t involve digging her nails into her skin. 

“Have you heard from him?” Polly asks quietly, and she shakes her head.

“No.”

Her sister exhales in a way that Betty can tell is supposed to be judgement-free, yet ends up completely the opposite.

“I thought he might,” she admits. “Maybe a text or… I don’t know.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m sorry,” Polly says. “Really Betty. I thought he might be here.”

She isn’t sure if she’s disappointed or relieved that that’s not the case, but is saved from making up her mind by her name being called.

“I’ll be right here,” Polly tells her, and squeezes her hand as she gets up.

Inside of the room that she’s led to, the walls are bright white. She supposes it’s meant to be clean - and it is - but it’s also terrifying in some strange sort of way. 

“I know you might’ve already had this conversation previously,” the clinician begins gently, “But so that I’m confident of your being fully-informed, I’ll explain today’s process and what you can expect once you’re home.”

Betty nods blindly, and stares at the white wall opposite. 

“Firstly, you’ll take the mifepristone here, and then between twenty-four and twenty-eight hours later, you’ll take the second pill - the misoprostol - at home.”

She’s done her research. She knows what’s going to happen after that series of second pills; knows about the cramping and the heavy bleeding and the likely fact that all she’s going to want to do is curl up in bed with a hot water bottle and cry. 

And so she zones out, not realising the sting of her nails piercing her palms until it’s too late.

  
  
  
  
  


Polly calls a cab to take them home so she doesn’t have to ride the bus. The last time she’d boarded it back from Greendale, Jughead had been there when she’d gotten off and they’d eaten chilli fries at Pop’s. 

It’s been just over a week since she last saw him - she hasn’t heard from him in that time either - and she makes up her mind as they turn into Elm Street that she’s glad.

Glad, but disappointed all the same.

“Can I get you anything?” Polly asks, hovering in a way that’s almost suffocating. “Some tea maybe? Or a blanket? Hot water bottle?”

“I think I’m just going to go to bed,” Betty says. “But thanks.”

Her sister looks at her then with such sympathy that it’s  _ that, _ of all things, that makes her want to throw up. “Okay.” Her voice is small when she adds the next part. “But if you want to talk… I know what you’re going through.”

The smile she tries to give won’t come, and so she ends up saying instead, “Mom would be proud, huh?”

Polly only sighs.

Inside her bedroom, with the door and the curtains closed; with her face buried into her pillow and her knees clutched to her chest; with the image of Jughead’s ashen face in her mind, she cries.

  
  
  
  
  


The following Monday, Betty returns to school. It pleases Alice, who had begun to drop comments about missed classes and opportunities and the effectiveness of Tylenol on period cramps. Polly had managed each time to steer the conversation elsewhere, and for that, she’s grateful.

She expects to see Jughead in the hallway; in each of their classes that day; in the cafeteria or the parking lot given that the rain finally seems to have stopped, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t see him the next day either, nor the next, nor any subsequent day that week. The bell rings at the end of the day on Friday, and she bumps into Toni on the steps. She’s snuggling into Cheryl Blossom and the aching feeling in Betty’s chest as a result catches her off-guard.

“Hi,” she says, and gnaws on her bottom lip.

“Betty,” Toni returns. “Hey.”

“Do you...um… do you have a minute?”

She watches as Toni gives her girlfriend a look that must mean something significant to the two of them, because without so much as a hint of sarcasm Cheryl drops a kiss to the other girl’s lips and says,

“I’ll meet you in the car, TT.”

For a moment, Betty’s not quite sure what to say, but them she summons just enough courage to ask, “Where is he?”

The look in Toni’s eyes tells her everything she needs to know. “He’s gone.”

She thinks she might be blinking. She’s not sure. She thinks she might want to cry.

She’s not sure she can. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a sort of whooshing noise in her ears. A pricking in her eyes. Toni reaches out to squeeze her arm but she quickly stuffs her hands into her raincoat pockets so nobody can touch her. 

“Do you need a ride? I can ask Cheryl to -”

“-I’m good,” she manages. (Another lie) “I’ll take the bus.”

  
  
  
  
  


Later, a little after seven, Betty gets a text. She doesn’t have the number saved in her contacts but she guesses who it’s from even before she makes it to the end.

 

**It might be a good idea if we talked. Pop’s in a half hour? It’ll just be you and me - Toni**

 

Jughead’s friend is already seated when Betty arrives, sipping on a chocolate milkshake and looking the effortless type of cool she always does. It still intimidates her sometimes. 

Toni pats the table when she approaches, and Betty takes a seat opposite. Right as she’s removing her coat, Pop delivers a burger and fries and offers her the same.

“No, thank you,” she replies politely. “Can I just get a strawberry milkshake?”

“Coming up,” he tells her with that easy smile of his, and Betty finds a genuine one (albeit small) crossing her own mouth in response.

“So,” Toni starts, looking a little sorry. “That boy, huh?”

She tries to laugh in response but it doesn’t really work. (Doesn’t work  _ at all _ ) “Yeah.”

“I learned a lot about men, or…” she pushes a wave of pink-brown hair behind her ear. “ _ Southside _ men I guess. Before I realised who I was… uh… sexually.”

Both of them smile somewhat awkwardly and Toni continues.

“They tend to grow up with fathers who, if they’re there, aren’t  _ actually... _ uh…  _ there. _ Everyone’s kind of just figuring things out as they go. And we fuck it up sometimes.” She takes a bite of her burger and shrugs. “A lot of the time, in Jug’s case.”

“Right.”

“Look, Betty, I’m not making excuses for him. He’s been an ass and I’m not even sure he deserves your forgiveness for what he did with the… you know? But the night he left, he looked devastated.”

Devastated.  _ Devastated. _

“I don’t need to know what happened between you guys, but if he left - if he’s not hanging out at the Wyrm or at parties then… then it’s different, I guess.”

“Different?”

“He can hide himself at parties. Usually.  But I guess whatever he’s hiding from this time -” 

“-I had an abortion,” she admits, almost inaudibly. “The… it was his.”

Toni stops chewing, the half-masticated burger still in her mouth, and it would be almost comical, Betty thinks, if it weren’t so damn tragic. “Shit, Betty.” A few crumbs of bread spray across the formica table. “Are you okay?”

She shakes her head and tries (failingly) to be nonchalant. “Not really.”

“Does he know?”

The napkin she appears to have been screwing up unfolds itself and flattens back against the table, creased. “He knew I had the appointment booked.”

Toni’s eyes are wide and soft when their gazes meet. “And he ran away.”

Her breath does that thing where it’s supposed to be a burst of laughter, except it’s not - it’s like a sigh and a resigned murmur all at the same time. “Can you blame him?”

“Aren’t you mad?”

“No.” Because she isn’t. Not really. She misses him and she’s mad at  _ that _ , but she’s not mad at  _ him. _

“You’re a better woman than I am,” Toni replies, and picks up her burger again, before pausing right before it reaches her mouth. “I know where he is,” she adds quietly. “If you want to see him.” 

  
  
  
  
  


There’s no guarantee he’s still there, of course. Even when she’s seated on the bus, watching the grey-green of the trees blur past the window out of town, she can’t be certain Jughead will be at Winding Roads Motel when her three-and-a-half hour ride is up. 

She sends the text to Polly like she’d promised she would, and adds that she’ll send another once she’s at the motel, but switches it off before the battery drains completely. She’d been in too much of a rush to grab her charger, and if things don’t quite go to plan (if, indeed there even  _ is _ a plan) she might need what’s left of the battery. 

It’s raining. Of course it is, because the weather doesn’t seem to do much else here, so Betty doesn’t rest her head on the window lest she look like one of those jilted girls in a music video. There aren’t too many other passengers. It’s a strange sort of time to be taking a trip to Cleveland, and she’s glad of the space beside her. She passes the time trying to think of anything but Jughead (and inevitably fails, because it’s all him: Jughead Jughead Jughead)

The bus hisses to a stop at some nowhere town, and she reads the painted sign: Blasdell. If anything, the rain is pounding harder now, and she’s soaked to her skin in seconds after stepping onto the sidewalk. The neon sign a few hundred yards down the street indicates the place she’s looking for, and she walks so fast she’s almost out of breath when she reaches the parking lot out front. 

There aren’t many vehicles: only an old beat-up truck, a Sierra, a couple other sedans she can’t make out. And then a motorcycle.

“I’m meeting my friend here,” Betty tells the woman behind the desk on reception. “He forgot to tell me which number his room is and my phone’s died.” She doesn’t feel bad for the lie - has spent too much time feeling bad about everything else instead. “His last name is Jones.”

There’s a tv playing some game show she briefly recognises, the audience’s applause sounding hollow and tinny through the crappy speakers. 

“Forty-three,” the woman says after scanning her sheet of paper. “First floor.”

The rain, of course, is still bouncing down, saturating her clothes further while she waits in front of the door. The wind has picked up too, hurling the water sideways so that it stings her skin. Betty knocks again and then again before continuously banging her knuckles at the cheap wood.

Finally, she hears a click, the slide of a chain, and the door opens fractionally, most of the light blocked by Jughead’s stooped figure.

“Betty,” he chokes. “How did you -”

“- Can I come in?” she asks. “It’s really cold.”

His reaction is delayed, but when she shivers, he opens the door wide enough for her to step inside. 

“You’re soaking,” he murmurs, inching closer and then stepping back. Stepping away. But then, “Let me get you a towel.”

He hands her one from the bathroom which is a sort of dull grey-white, but it’s warm and smells clean. It smells, she realises as she wipes it across her face, like  _ him _ . He’s watching her every move, the backs of his knees skirting the edge of the bed, and it feels so incredibly intense that she wonders whether she’s made the right decision in coming to find him. 

“It was Toni,” Betty tells him. “She told me where you were.”

He nods fractionally. “I asked her not to do that.”

“I know.”

It’s quiet again and he rubs his hands hard across his face. “Betty, if you’re here because you feel guilty -”

“-That’s not why I’m here.” (Except it is, partly, she considers) “I missed you.” (And that part is true too)

“Why?” He pushes his hand against his nose and Betty thinks he might be crying. “Why the fu- why would you miss  _ me _ ?”

She shrugs tiredly. “I don’t know.” (because - another truth - she doesn’t) The sigh falls from her mouth before she can stop it. “I didn’t think I would.” She whispers the next part but she can tell he’s heard. “I didn’t want to.” 

“I didn’t want you to.”

She shivers again. “Did you miss  _ me _ ?”

Something in Jughead’s expression changes. His eyes, sad and blue and still able to make her insides clench, swim with something that wasn’t there before. He takes a breath and then another, and admits,

“If I tell you the truth, I guess that makes me an even shittier person that I already am.”

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “But don’t you think it’s the only place we have left to start?”

He laughs at that - or, kind-of. It comes out as more of a huff of air that showcases his predilection for cigarettes, but that wateriness is still lining the edge of his eyes. “I guess so.”

She shivers a third time and he rises from the bed to pull a holdall from the closet. He rummages in it for a good while before pulling out a creased t-shirt which he holds out for her.

“You’re cold and, I don’t know, maybe you should take a shower? Warm up?” Jughead gestures for her to take the shirt. “It’s the only clean one I have.”

“You were going to tell me something.”

“It can wait,” he says. “At least until you’re not soaking wet.”

She’s not sure whether she trusts him enough to tell her the truth after she’s done in the bathroom. If he’ll have time to concoct some  _ other _ truth instead. “No,” she shakes her head. “It can’t. Did you _ miss _ me?”

“Betty -”

“- Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear or what you think I  _ should _ hear.”

Jughead swallows hard and sits back on the edge of the mattress. “I missed you.” His eyes are watery again. “I missed you so much that my body aches. And not because of… of  _ that _ but ‘cause it hurts when I think about you. I tried not to. I know I’m… that I’m  _ bad _ for you, Betts.”

She sniffs, barely realising that she’s crying. “I think I want to be with you, I just… I don’t know if it’s supposed to be this hard.”

He rubs his palms down his thighs but says nothing.

“I should take that shower.”

  
  
  
  
  


He’s watching her when she emerges from the bathroom. His eyes look tired and sore, rimmed with the kind of redness that comes as a result of sadness or exhaustion - or maybe a mix of both - but overall, he looks relieved.

“Thought you might’ve climbed through the window,” Jughead tells her. She knows it’s supposed to be a joke but it’s edged with the truth too, and her chest hurts as she crosses the tiny space to the bed.

“ _ Jug. _ ”

He shrugs his apology and then makes his own way to the bathroom. Betty wonders whether he’s brought a toothbrush or mouthwash with him, and then quickly decides it doesn’t matter. She thinks about making a joke about the window, and decides against that, too. 

Whilst the tap runs on the other side of the door, she turns out the ceiling light and switches on the bedside lamp so the illumination isn’t quite so harsh. The mattress sags when she climbs under the sheets, the cotton scratchy against her legs when she stretches them out, but ultimately, she’s comfortable. 

The bathroom door opens with a squeak a minute or so later, and again Jughead watches her. She doesn’t want to have to have a conversation about where he’s going to sleep, and so draws back the sheets enough that he’ll understand what she means. 

“You sure?” he asks.

Betty nods, because saying  _ yes _ seems too hard with the lump in her throat and the way he’s looking at her, and Jughead climbs in carefully beside her. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and neither does she, so it’s just the sound of their breaths and the traffic outside and the low whirr of the bathroom fan after she turns out the lamp. 

“You said you had an appointment that Wednesday after I came over.”

“Yeah.”

He shifts so he’s lying on his side, and she’s overwhelmed by his scent. By his proximity in the weak moonlight. “Did you go?”

Her voice cracks when she replies. “Yes.”

The exhale he lets out is loud and she can feel it even through the cotton of the t-shirt she’s wearing. “I guess I thought…”

“I couldn’t have had that baby, Jughead.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t dare ask if he wanted it. (Is petrified that for some unknown reason, he might have)

“I should’ve come with you.”

“I had Polly.”

He sniffs and she can tell he’s crying. “I thought that l left, it might be easier.”

“For who? You?”

“And you,” he chokes. “But yeah, for me too.”

“Was it?”

His breath is warm and his skin is warm and she thinks she might - that she  _ does _ \- want this. Him. “A little.”

“I’m not sorry.”

The bed moves as he shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to be.”

Finally, she turns towards him, the hem of her borrowed t-shirt inching up above her hips towards her waist, and Jughead reaches his hand across to stroke her bare skin. Instantly, Betty feels goosebumps break out at his touch as his thumb smooths a circle around the place where the dandelion clock is inked over her ribs.

He strokes and strokes and strokes, guiding his fingertips so gently across her skin that she can barely stand it. This same boy who left her on the verge of an orgasm in Cheryl Blossom’s bathroom; who’d practically slammed her into his kitchen cabinets; who’d gotten her pregnant not by making love, but by  _ fucking  _ her for a bet. 

“Betty?” he questions into the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“Would it be okay if… if I held you?”

There is a lump in her throat too big to swallow. It’s too dark to nod and she wants him to know that yes, it  _ is _ okay, so she manages to squeeze out her reply in a cracked whisper. “I’d like that.”

Jughead sinks his arm beneath her pillow and she presses herself against him so that her lips are brushing the cotton of his own t-shirt and every time she breathes in, the scent of pine and soap and cigarettes fills her nostrils.

The arm that’s not beneath her pillow comes around to circle her, cocooning her body in warmth. She feels safe - more so than she’s ever felt with him (more so than she’s ever felt with  _ anyone _ since she was a little girl and she and Polly used to snuggle against each other when they couldn’t sleep)

Jughead’s eyes are still open, she can tell. She can hear his eyelashes brush the pillowcase each time he blinks, and she reaches her fingers up to his face. She strokes around his temple and along his jaw, and then traces his lips. She can’t reach to kiss him (isn’t sure she  _ should _ kiss him) but knows from the trembling of his mouth that he’s fighting tears again.

They lay like that without breaking apart and Betty doesn’t ever remember being held this tightly by  _ anyone _ . She doubts even if a hurricane were to strike, that it would be able to tear her from him. Outside in the darkness, the traffic thunders past and she feels Jughead bury his nose further into her hair. Her eyes close finally, heavy and desperate for sleep, and she begins to drift off with the thought that maybe she did the right thing after all. 

And then, just as she’s teetering off the precipice of non-REM sleep and into the deep, she thinks she hears him whisper,

“I love you.”

  
  
  
  
  


In the morning, Betty wakes to Jughead blinking beside her, his eyes still red and sore-looking, arms still holding her against him. It feels like it’s stifling and yet not enough at the same time, and she pushes back the dark wave of his hair that’s falling over his eyes. 

“Hey,” he whispers with an unsure smile.

“Hey.”

He makes to pull away (she can, after all, feel his hard dick against her thigh) but she wants him close enough that his scent is everywhere; wants to feel the muscles in his arms flex as he holds her and strokes her skin, and so her fingers wrap around his forearms to keep him right where he is.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” she replies. “It’s a pretty comfy bed, despite the sheets.”

His lips curve into a little smile. “They’re pretty scratchy, right?”

“Right.”

Betty allows herself to really look at him; to take in the pallor of his usually-olive skin and the redness around his eyes; his drawn mouth and the dark designs inked into his arms. She reaches her right hand up to his face, tracing the plains of his nose and cheekbones, his jaw and down his neck to his clavicle.

Jughead’s breathing is shallow and she’s pretty sure hers is too, her chest pressed up against his like it is, but she dares to press the pads of her fingertips - just lightly - at his lips. They part ever-so-slightly (his lips, that is) and his breaths burn her skin. 

“You didn’t sleep,” Betty says.

“No.”

“You couldn’t?”

He shakes his head just a fraction. “Didn’t want to.” He forms his lips into a kiss and dusts her fingertips with it before she retracts her hands, tucking them back in at her chest. “Betty, I can’t go back. Not yet.”

She sits up a little, his arms dropping to the mattress. “I can’t stay here.”

“I know.” Jughead pushes from his hands so he’s sitting too. The sheet pools at both of their waists. She half-expects to be cold, but isn’t. “I’m not asking you to.”

“So you’re just going to stay here?”

“Actually, I was going to go see my mom. In Toledo.”

Something feels like it might be splintering in her chest, and she’s not sure why. Maybe she wants him to come back with her. Maybe it’s the mention of his mom. Maybe it’s that he’s going to be eight hours away.

Maybe it’s having heard him say he loves her.

“Oh.”

“It’s uh… it’s something that I think I need to do.”

Betty makes to get out of bed but he stops her with a gentle tug of her wrist. “What about school?”  _ What about me? _

He shrugs like it’s nothing. “You’ll tutor me, right?” It’s said in the flirty drawl he used to use what seems like a lifetime ago, and her heart sinks. “Sorry,” Jughead apologises. “Old habit I guess.”

She feels her lips flatten into a thin line. “So you’re coming back then? Eventually?”

His thumb settles over her pulsepoint and she feels a little more pressure over her veins. “Yeah.” His voice is quiet. “Eventually.”

They get dressed: her in the bathroom and him in the main room, and by the time she’s done he’s stuffing his wallet into his back pocket. 

“You want breakfast?” Jughead asks.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“You sure? There’s an IHOP down the street.”

Briefly, she wonders where he’s gotten the money to pay for pancakes - and for the motel room too - but she doesn’t ask. 

“I should go back to Riverdale. My mom thinks I’m at -”

“-Veronica’s?”

She smiles despite herself. “Yeah.”

“I can give you a ride - save you having to take the bus.”

Scrunching the sleeves of her sweater, Betty shakes her head. “It’ll make it harder if you drop me.”

He looks devastated and for a moment she thinks about changing her mind. “Yeah,” he returns sadly. “I guess it will.”

  
  
  
  


Jughead walks her to the bus stop which is torture in itself. He doesn’t hold her hand, but he stands close enough while they wait that she can feel the heat from his body seeping through the cold.

They say very little, and Betty’s stomach rumbles despite her earlier statement that she wasn’t hungry. Finally, just as the bus rounds the corner a few hundred yards down the street, he clears his throat.

“You don’t have to… I uh… I’m not expecting you to wait for me.”

She doesn’t know what to say.

The brakes let out a hiss of air as the bus lowers towards the street and the doors open. Her mouth still doesn’t appear to be working and so she steps up, right before Jughead grabs her hand.

“Betty, I…”

She blinks at him, waiting for the rest of what he’s about to say, but it doesn’t come. The driver coughs and Jughead’s lips tremble and in that precise moment, she wants to go back inside of that motel room and hide away with him forever. He squeezes gently, rubs his thumb over the crescent indents and then squeezes a final time.

“I’ll see you,” he says.

She nods and blinks but her vision is blurred with tears. It’s for the best and she knows it, but that splintering in her chest from earlier is back, and it hurts even more than it had before. 

“See you.”


	6. Returning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments last chapter. I promise I'm getting around to reply to them all, but thought you'd want the chapter first.
> 
> Keep them coming guys - they're great motivation and I love hearing your thoughts x

Jughead isn’t sure what he’d expected when he’d thought about seeing Gladys for the first time after she left Riverdale, but he  _ does  _ know that it isn’t  _ this. _ The house she lives in now - though small and a little tired around the edges - is still a house; is still sitting on its own plot with a driveway that has a Ford Focus parked in it - old but not his dad’s  _ beat up truck  _ old - a hanging basket spilling with lilac-coloured flowers either side of the front door.

He’s been staying here for a couple of weeks now, watching as the sky has turned from grey to weak marian blue, to the slightly brighter periwinkle they’ve had for the past two days. He watches each morning as Jellybean boards the school bus after a healthy portion of one of the three branded cereals from the cupboard; listens to the cheery “Bye mom!” and hears the difference in tone when she bids  _ him _ a goodbye too. 

He hasn’t asked ( _ won’t  _ ask) why he’s not a part of it. 

Jughead isn’t sure he wants to live in Toledo, but he can concede that living like this wouldn’t be all bad.

When he wakes to the smell of a freshly baked cake, he makes the decision to return to Riverdale and the life his mom left behind.

“It’s Brady’s birthday,” Gladys tells him when he asks about the occasion, and he remembers distinctly his own father’s lack of birthday cake all of the years he can recall them living together as a family. Jellybean has decorated the kitchen with balloons and streamers; has scrawled her stepfather’s name on an envelope in photogenic cursive, and Jughead packs up his stuff with a sour taste in his mouth.

He knows FP has fucked up, but he doesn’t deserve  _ this. _

“Won’t you stay for a slice of cake?” his mom asks when he tells her of his decision to go home, and he shakes his head, forcing a flat tone into his voice for the sake of his sister. 

“I have to get back.”

All three of them wave him off with smiles on their faces, and he feels his skin stretch as he tightens his hands around the motorcycle’s handlebars. 

He stops twice on the way back, first of all for coffee and a bathroom break, and secondly for a chicken sandwich of questionable freshness. It’s late afternoon when he makes the turn off the interstate and towards Riverdale, and his stomach grumbles hungrily.

The neon sign of Pop’s signals the border of the north and south sides, and Jughead pulls his bike into the lot, rolling it to a stop in the shade of the sugar maple trees. He climbs off, pulling off his helmet on the way into the diner.

Pop makes him a cheeseburger and hands it over with a smile. “You see that young lady of yours?”

Jughead blinks stupidly. 

“She was outside a few minutes ago. They said they were going to make the most of the sun - you might still catch her if you’re quick.”

_ They?  _ “Thanks Pop,” he says taking the bagged burger. 

The old man only nods, and Jughead makes his way back out to the parking lot.

She’s wearing a white sundress when he sees her. Her hair is loose from its ponytail and she’s laughing with Veronica and Archie, sipping at what looks like a strawberry milkshake, only it’s in one of Pop’s takeout cups so he can’t be sure. Her eyes are crinkled at the corners and her skin looks like it’s caught the sun in places: her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, her shoulders and her chest - just above the slight curve of her tits.

He’s immediately jealous of Archie. The jock is very obviously with Veronica, but Jughead struggles to shake the memory of Betty telling him she’d slept with her nextdoor neighbour; struggles not to think about someone else putting their hands on that tattoo of hers; struggles with the fact that she isn’t  _ his _ and he has no right to feel possessive over her.

Maybe she  _ was _ his, once, he thinks. Not as a possession, but as something else. 

Or maybe, not at all.

Betty lifts her head and must see him because all of a sudden, she stops laughing. He can’t be sure of the expression that takes its place. Shock, maybe, or bewilderment. Anxiousness or - worse - disappointment. 

He sees rather than hears her say, “Jughead,” and that’s when Archie and Veronica stop laughing too. Their heads turn in his direction and he feels like he did back on that stage at the Valentine’s Dance.

She slides off of the wall and crosses to him like they’re in some shitty rom com movie without any of the actual comedy. 

(Maybe without any of the romance, too)

“Are you back?” Betty asks.

“Yes.”

“For good?”

Jughead tries to smile but it seems to come out wrong. “Yeah.”

She nods but doesn’t really say anything more, and with Archie and Veronica only a few feet away, he’s not about to launch into a speech. “It’s good to see you, Betty,” he tells her, and makes to cross the parking lot. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”

It’s quiet again and all he wants to do is push her against the wall of the diner and kiss her. Of course, he doesn’t.

“That’s it?”

He turns back around, watching as she fights the breeze for the strand of hair that keeps blowing into her face. He wants to tuck it back himself. 

“You’re not going to say anything else?” She looks mad.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you,” he admits honestly. “Everything I want to say…” It’s inappropriate. All of it. 

“I waited.” She shrugs. “You said you didn’t… I didn’t have to.” She steps fractionally closer. “But I did.”

He’s still not sure what to say. “Betts…”

Quickly, she glances back at Archie and Veronica, the former pretending not to look; the latter opening watching them. “Meet me tonight - at Pop’s.”

“Okay.”

“Seven o’clock.”

Jughead just about manages to swallow. “Okay.”

  
  
  
  
  


His dad eyes him warily when he steps into the Wyrm. FP is seated at the bar, both a beer bottle and an empty shot glass in front of him, and he barely rises from the stool to greet him.

“You back for good?” he asks gruffly. He looks older, Jughead thinks, than the last time he saw him a few weeks ago. Looks unkempt and tired: in desperate need of a shower and a good meal and a mattress without broken springs.

“Yeah,” Jughead replies, and FP reaches out, pulling him in for a hug. His father’s breath smells like he’s been at the bar longer than it takes to drink just one beer, but he tries to ignore it when he mumbles against his ear,

“Missed you, kid.”

He’s somewhat shocked that’s it’s not a lie when he returns the sentiment. “I missed you too.”

The trailer is a mess when he gets there. There are beer  _ and _ liquor bottles on the side - all empty - and the blanket usually folded on the arm of the couch is balled up and tossed haphazardly so that one of the corners is resting on the floor. The cupboards don’t have much food in them when Jughead checks their contents. It’s not entirely unusual, but there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach which feels a lot like guilt.

He tidies up, tossing the empty bottles into a bag to take out to the trash before wiping the counter. He washes the precarious stack of dishes piled up in the sink too, and then checks the bathroom. The towels at least look clean, but he decides to wash them anyway - just in case.

FP arrives as Jughead is stepping out of the shower, the water pipe creaking and protesting as it always does. He thinks briefly of the pretty fucking decent water pressure back in Toledo before banishing it from his mind in a show of allegiance to his father and their shitty trailer.  

“You cleaned,” FP states as they meet in the tiny square between the bathroom, living room and Jughead’s bedroom.

“It kind of needed it.”

“I didn’t know you were coming back today. If I did, I would’ve tidied.”

He doubts the trailer would’ve looked like this even if his dad  _ had _ known, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“How’s Jellybean?”

He thinks of his sister: her full cereal bowl; the Fruity Pebbles and Cinnamon Toasts and Cap’n Crunch in the cupboard; her looping cursive  _ y _ at the end of Brady’s name; the streamers and balloons; the absence of guilt towards their father.

“She’s great.”

“And your mom?”

That one’s harder to answer. “She’s, uh… she’s good, too.”

His dad nods, and swallows visibly. “Good.”

There’s an awkward, heavy silence before FP notes the fact that he’s been in the shower. “You going somewhere?”

“I’m meeting Betty.”

There’s a knowing smile in his father’s eyes and Jughead finds something of a grin on his own too. “So things with you two are…”

“I don’t know,” Jughead shrugs. “Maybe they’re good. Or okay. I don’t really -”

“- Just be careful,” he says. “ _ Both _ of you.”

  
  
  
  
  


At six forty-five, Jughead is already seated in one of Pop’s booths. The smell of burgers and onion rings is making his mouth water, but there’s a contradictory swooping inside of his stomach that’s making him feel a little sick. He sits there nursing a cup of coffee - which is probably a bad idea - until the door opens at exactly six fifty-seven and Betty walks in.

She’s wearing another white sundress, only this one has a shorter hem and a little cut-out either side of her waist that shows off a little peek of her skin, stopping just shy of the place Jughead knows her tattoo resides.

“Hi,” he manages.

Betty’s smile is small, but it’s there. “Hi.”

“Can I get you something to drink? Or eat?” he asks. “Both?”

Her smile widens. “A strawberry milkshake,” she tells him. “Please.”

He orders from the counter and adds on a chocolate milkshake for himself, plus a basket of fries in a decadent display of the twenty dollar bill FP had given him as he left.

On his way back to the booth, Jughead sees that Betty’s sundress has ribbons holding it together at the back, and his mouth waters at the amount of skin on show. She smiles at him again when he sits down opposite her.

“Nice dress.”

There’s a pink blush to her cheeks, but she looks satisfied. “Thank you.”

Pop brings their milkshakes, each with two straws, and when Betty bends over the table to sample his, he gets a pretty unobstructed view of her tits that makes his dick twitch. Sharing a bed with her in that motel had been torture, and other than his own hand, he’s had no relief since. He swallows but makes little to no attempt to avert his eyes. 

“It’s good,” she decides. “But I still like strawberry better.” 

She pushes her glass towards him and he takes a large sip through the straw. Betty watches him the whole time, twirling a strand of hair around her forefinger, and it makes him nervous.

“Think I might like strawberry better too.”

Satisfied, she grins, but then her smile drops along with her hair. “I was worried you wouldn’t come back.”

“ _ Betts _ .”

She takes a sip of her milkshake. “I’m glad you did.”

He wants to hold her hand. “I’m glad I did, too.”

Pop plants the fries between them at that moment, then makes a sort-of instruction with his eyes that implies Jughead should move to sit beside Betty. So he does.

“So we can reach easier,” he lies. “And I can have more of this milkshake.”

Perhaps she does it purposely, but her hand remains on the seat between them. He eyes her fingers, watches them twitch slightly before he slides his palm over the top and she turns her wrist so their fingers link. She squeezes and shuffles closer, and Jughead reaches for the fries.

“How was Toledo?”

He stops mid-chew and forces the fries down. “It was okay. It was good to see my sister.”

Betty moves closer still and he can smell her shampoo: vanilla.

“And your mom?”

He shrugs. “She has a different life now. They both do, I guess.”

Jughead feels the smallest touch at his shoulder, and glances to the left to see Betty pressing a kiss against him. He wants to bury himself in her and never let her go.

“Just so you know,” she tells him quietly. “I told my parents I’d be out until late.”

He thinks he knows what she means, but he’s been wrong before and he doesn’t want to take that chance. “After we’re done here…”

“We should go to Sunnyside,” Betty says. “To your place.”

  
  
  
  
  


When they make it through the trailer’s door, Jughead can see that his dad is home. His jacket is hanging on the hook and his boots are by the door. His heart sinks, but then there’s the tinny sound of laughing on some tv show.

“My dad’s here.”

His bedroom door is closed, and there’s the low hum of his television filtering through the gap. It’s a signal, he knows:  _ do what you’re going to do. _

“I don’t think he’ll bother us.”

“Really?”

He nods and steps closer to her. “Really. But we don’t have to… I’m not expecting -”

“- Juggie,” she says on a half-sigh. “I think I’ve waited long enough.”

It’s Betty that kisses him, leaning in gently with her hands either side of his face, and they’re warm and soft and he can smell something sweet - like peaches, or honey maybe - on her skin. He can hear her inhale and hum softly at the back of her mouth, and he thinks he might sigh too as he smooths his hands down either side of her waist.

She presses herself against his chest, her stomach brushing his belt buckle, and Jughead’s hands automatically slide to her back where her sundress is tied with the series of ribbons. His ass bumps into the counter and Betty’s arms wrap around his neck, holding him closer still.

When he finally has to break for air (not that he wants to) Betty is on her tiptoes and uses her thumb to turn his head enough that she can kiss her way down his neck. There are tingles shooting from his ears to his fingertips and his breaths leave his mouth in stuttered gasps.

“Your bedroom,” she tells him, and her teeth graze his skin.

Her words are just enough to shake him, and he catches her wrist gently. “We don’t have to -”

“- I want to,” Betty says. 

And so they do.

She watches him close the door behind them, flecks of dust drifting in the strips of sunlight filtering through his blinds, and Jughead swallows because this suddenly feels more momentous that everything that’s gone before: the bet and his apology in front of everyone at the Valentine’s dance; their subsequent meeting in Pop’s; her telling him she was pregnant (and then her telling him she didn’t want to keep it) the motel and the bus stop and seeing her again earlier this afternoon. 

She crosses her arms in front of her and lifts up the hem of her dress, tugging until the material is all the way over her head and she’s waiting before him in only her underwear. Fleetingly, he’s disappointed that he didn’t get to untie those ribbons at her back, but then he lets his eyes rake over her body and all disappointment ebbs away. Her underwear matches: white lace, but it’s her tattoo that he stares at. Its dark ink is such a contradiction to the colour of her skin and her hair and the bra and panties it sits between, and Jughead is vaguely aware of his mouth watering for the second time that night.

“Your turn,” Betty instructs, and he pulls his t-shirt upwards in the same manner she had, tossing it to the floor somewhere behind him. 

He keeps his eyes on her all the while, even as he slips the needle of the belt buckle through its hole and tugs his jeans downwards, her lips parted and wet where her tongue licks out. 

There’s the thud thud thudding of his pulse in his ears when he steps towards her, hand reaching out to ghost over the dandelion clock. Goosebumps raise beneath his fingers and he sinks slowly to his knees, inhaling at her ribs and kissing the soft skin below her bellybutton.

Betty’s right hand strokes at the back of his neck, her fingertips sinking deliciously at the nape as he brings his own down over the lace of her underwear. She sucks in a breath expectantly and Jughead presses his lips to the crease in her thigh where the edge of the lace sits. He can just about make out the little strip of dark blonde hair covered by the material, and he kisses that too, right over her clit, before guiding her backwards to his bed.

It’s different this time.

He crouches on the floor and smooths his hands along each of her legs, down the outside and up again on the inside until his fingers hook under the elastic, dragging back round to her hips which rise for him to tug the panties down. Once he has them off and he’s taken just a fractionate amount of the time he wants to look at her, Jughead strokes her left leg, bending it slightly so it’s resting on his shoulder, and then he lays his mouth on her skin, nuzzling upwards from her bent knee until he’s hovering over her slit and Betty’s breathing so hard he almost smirks with it. 

“Please,” she gasps, and he holds his tongue there, hot and fat as she pushes against him. When he drags it upwards, he can taste her - and it makes him painfully hard. 

Her eyes are screwed tight, and so he pauses - just for a moment - to see her open them. Her lids are hooded and his bedsheets are bunched in her fists, and he chooses that moment to curl his tongue inside of her to make her come undone. 

There are a few seconds between him joining her on the bed and a northern mockingbird beginning its song somewhere in the distance, where she stretches out unashamed. She lets him run his palms everywhere; lets him unhook her bra and kiss between her tits and sink his mouth over her nipple as she sighs into the pillow. 

When those seconds are up though, Betty comes to, lifting her head and arching upwards so she can get to her knees. He’s more than happy to stop here - can jerk off in the shower later with this memory playing on loop - but she seems to have other ideas, fingers inching towards the elastic of his boxers as they are.

Jughead’s on his knees too, half-ripping the material off of himself, and then it’s just them. No clothes.

They need a condom.

He reaches for the drawer beside the bed, fishing around half-blind until his fingers fold around the wrapper. 

“You sure?” he asks, and she nods just once, taking the condom from him. “Betts, I can…” The rest of the words wilt and die on his tongue when she rolls it down his length. “Shit.”

He expects her to lie back against his pillows, but she doesn’t. Instead, it’s him who lies backwards, his hands instinctively reaching for her hips as she shifts her weight to straddle him. 

“I’m on the pill, too,” she half-whispers like it’s an admission, and Jughead watches with a thrumming in his veins as she sinks down over his dick.

Betty’s eyes close and she waits, and it’s like flames are licking at his skin, burning where her fingertips lay. He’s already close. It won’t take long - won’t take much of her rolling her body over his before he spills over - and he brings her to him so she’s bent at the waist and her nipples are grazing his chest.

It’s her who moves, only slowly, with his palms dragging down her back and back up to her hair so he can hold it off of her face. Her lips take his, sucking gently as she matches his movements where they’re joined at the core, until he can’t kiss her anymore because all of his breath is stolen when she moans into his mouth.

Betty draws back so she can brace herself against the mattress; so she can circle her hips and push upward, and he gasps out a strangled,

“Fuck, baby,” into the air. 

Jughead watches her watch him as he comes, with a thumb pressed to one of the scattered dandelion seeds inked over her ribs.

_ I love you,  _ he wants to say, and yet he daren’t. He’ll save it, he decides, for when she can’t hear it. 

  
  
  
  
  


He doesn’t drive Betty home afterwards. Instead, they walk. The air is cooling rapidly and the breeze is picking up moisture from the river so that it feels much less like spring than it had earlier in the afternoon, and Jughead drapes his jacket around her shoulders to keep the goosebumps away. 

Betty’s hand is in his, fingers folded neatly over his knuckles, and he wants to slow their steps to prolong his time with her. She tucks herself in against his side and rests her cheek on his shoulder, and he feels a fluttering all the way from his stomach up to his ears. 

He opens his mouth a couple times to try and fill the quiet with something, but each time decides against saying anything so as not to spoil whatever this is. They pass from the South Side to the north of town, and take the left turn at the corner of Elm Street. Betty pulls the jacket tighter around herself and Jughead catches a wave of her perfume. 

“You can keep it,” he chances.

She stops and turns to him. “Don’t you need it?”

“No.” (He kind of does, but he’s not about to admit that. He’d rather see her in the school corridor on Monday wearing it)

He watches as she inhales the leather near the collar. “It smells like you.”

He wants her to smell like him. To look like she’s his. To wear his jacket and let everyone know what that means.

A couple of raindrops fall and patter against the leather, and they begin walking again until they reach Betty’s house.

“So,” she starts, chewing her bottom lip in a way that shows him she’s nervous, and so he tugs her gently by his jacket until her mouth lands against his and she’s humming in quiet contentment as he kisses her.

“Night, Betts,” he says, stepping back before he blurts out something he shouldn’t. Something like  _ I love you _ .

“Goodnight Juggie,” she smiles, and he watches her inside of the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13.


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